Underwater human activities such as oceanography studies, offshore oil exploration, sea floor surveying and environmental monitoring have increased significantly. As a result, there is a growing need for reliable illumination and high data-rate underwater wireless communication (UWOC) systems. Traditionally, visible light sources have been separate from underwater communication systems. A variety of illumination devices are known, including for example, incandescent and LED sources. Acoustic communication systems are also well known. However, the bandwidth of an underwater acoustic channel is limited to hundreds of kHz because of strong frequency dependent attenuation of sound in seawater. The slow propagation of sound waves causes large time delay in acoustic communication systems. In addition, radio frequency (RF) communication is severely limited due to the conductivity of seawater at radio frequencies.